Indiareis 2018
divDear reader of this blog,/divdiv /divdivThis year Marie Curie had the idea to choose India as the destination for the study trip. We will start our trip on Friday the 27th of April at 6.30 AM. We will then travel from Nijmegen Central Station to Schiphol by train, where we will take a direct flight to New Delhi where the adventure begins.br /br //divdivDuring our trip, we will visit beautiful places in India, like the Taj Mahal, the Sundarbans (an amazing magrove area near the border with Bangladesh), and of course all kinds of physics institutes. For an overview of the schedule, see below./divdivIn this blog you can read about all our visits and how we experience our trip in India. The blog posts may contain photos of us at these wonderful spots (probably sweating since it is 40 degrees Celcius out there) to get a good impression of what we are doing there!br /br //divdivOn the span15th of May/span we will travel back to the Netherlands, early in the morning, so then the blog won't be updated anymore and you can ask us in person again about the study trip./divdiv /divdivWe hope you have a pleasant time reading this blog!br /br //divdivKind regards,/divdivThe Delhicieux (the committee of the Physics & Astronomy study trip 2018)/divdiv /divdivstrongbr //strongdiv dir="ltr"tablecolgroupcol width="102" /col width="498" //colgrouptbodytrtdApril 27th/tdtdJourney to New Delhi, India/td/trtrtdApril 28th/tdtdJourney from New Delhi to Agra by train/td/trtrtdApril 29th/tdtdVisit to the Taj Mahal and journey back to New Delhi by train/td/trtrtdApril 30th/tdtdFree day in New Delhi/td/trtrtdMay 1st/tdtdVisit to the National Physical Laboratory and the University of Delhi/td/trtrtdMay 2nd/tdtdVisit to the Indian Institute of Technology and journey to Kolkata by plane/td/trtrtdMay 3rd/tdtdVisit to the University of Calcutta/td/trtrtdMay 4th/tdtdVisit to the Bose Institute and the Indian Statistical Institute/td/trtrtdMay 5th/tdtdTrip to the Sundarban National Park (with an overnight stay)/td/trtrtdMay 6th/tdtdReturn from the Sundarban National Park trip/td/trtrtdMay 7th/tdtdVisit to the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre/td/trtrtdMay 8th/tdtdJourney to Bangalore by plane/td/trtrtdMay 9th/tdtdVisit to the ISRO Satellite Centre and the Centre for Research and Education in Science & Technology/td/trtrtdMay 10th/tdtdVisit to the Gauribidanur Observatory north of Bangalore/td/trtrtdMay 11th/tdtdVisit to the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and the Raman Research Institute/td/trtrtdMay 12th/tdtdFree time/td/trtrtdMay 13th/tdtdFree time/td/trtrtdMay 14th/tdtdVisit to the Indian Institute of Science and the ISRO Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems/td/trtrtdMay 15th/tdtdJourney back to the Netherlands/td/tr/tbody/table/div/div
A free day in New Delhi
Today was our last free day before going to Kolkata. On Mondays, almost all monuments are closed, but with Bart, Alexander and I decided to go and look at them from the outside. Walking to the metro, it was already hot outside (we slept long, so it was about 10:30 am). Inside the metro there is air conditioning, so we could cool down again. We walked to see the Red Fort from the outside. After that we walked through a market and went to the metro again to visit the Lotus Temple, which was in another part of the city. This was also closed, but we could get quite close by walking through the park that was around it. It had become even hotter, so after a break in the shade, we decided to walk back to the cooled metro to go back to our air conditioned hotel room.In the evening, we all gathered to have dinner together. Even the persons who stayed in bed sick all day joined. The restaurant served ``bottomless'' drinks and had food which was between Indian and Western food (I had a spicy vegetarian burger, but they called it mild). My belly was not happy with the amount of food I ate, but after some rumbling, it got calm again (others were less fortunate :-( ).Although it feel like a week, we only had three whole days here in India. I start to get used to being here. The heat is still overwhelming, but I can handle it much better. The streets seem bigger and the horns of all the Tuktuk's don't make me jump anymore. Though some changes are still difficult: In India they drive on the left side (in theory, in practice they can drive everywhere). It is important to remember that when crossing the streets. I still accidentally walk on the right side of stairs, instead of the left side. Also, I often forget that pointing with your finger is considered rude. You have to point with your thumb or with you whole hand. On the other hand, we have seen a lot of Indians pointing with their finger, so it won't be a big problem.
In these three days we have also encountered some special Indian behaviour. In the train back to Delhi, we sat next to some soldiers who where going to defend the border with Pakistan (the Indian interpretation of the border of course). They where very friendly and interested in us. I'd say that they offered us some food and alcohol, but that is not the right way to describe it. It was more like they forced us to eat their food and drink with them (``You six need to finish that bag of nuts, before we arrive in New Delhi!'' By the way, we failed, there were still nuts left when leaving the train) Very generous, but very strange. Saying ``no'' was not helping.
Another strange event happened today when buying lunch in a supermarket. After paying, Alexander saw that there was a mistake on the receipt and that he had payed about 800 rupees (10 euro) too much (He had payed 1100 rupees instead of 300). They were very friendly at the consumer service, but it took a very very long time to get the money back. First they needed to make many photos and copies of the faulty receipt, then they passed it on to about 10 other people, who went away with it, coming back some minutes later. There were multiple checks on what Alexander had bought and how much that should cost. But eventually, after 20 minutes (which seemed like an hour), Alexander got his money back. Luckily there was air conditioning inside.
Tomorrow we are getting up early to go visit our first institutes, so I'am going to bed now.
The Journey to the holy Taj Mahal
On Saturday we started our journey to Agra. An adventure of 200 km with the Indian train. The Indian trains are very special... very special. We went in and it seems to be that the train is living. Everywhere people, discussing, sitting, eating, playing, living. Families sit together, merchants selling goods, there is even a food delivery. And in the middle of everything a group of twenty students from Europe. But very quickly first contacts were made and between sleep and eat some friendships were made and we learned a lot about the Indians. Really nice people.After the sunset we arrived in Agra and after a short, very intensive bus ride we found us in a nice little hotel.. very tired. So we went to bed, to get up very early before the sunrise to get a nice experience at the Taj Mahal... Alarm clock set to 4:30 and try to sleep...
After a short night with 6 power failures and a decent fear about mosquitoes we get up early and went down the street 500 meters to the Taj Mahal. Seriously, what a nice place, impressive with a mystical atmosphere. We took a lot pictures. The idea with the sunrise was it worth. Beautiful. And wow a lot monkeys climbing and playing around.
After some hours of this experience, we went back to the hotel, 8:00, time for some Indian breakfast - Normally on this time I am still sleeping.
With a group of six we started a walk to the Agra fort, a very old barracks, But the walk was long, hot and with a big detour through some slums... Maybe it were slums, maybe not, but in every case I felt extremely thankful to be born in Europe. An experience I will never forget and keep in my heart.
On midday, everyone was extremely tired and limp, of course, not much sleep, and 40 degree are a challenge. So we were extremely happy to stay again in the train with its air cooling. But ... After a nice story narrated by Stefan about a documentary of an Indian train with engine failure, where everyone had to walk the whole way along the rails, we recognized that our train had stopped already for some minutes in the middle of nowhere. Ouch... we got an engine failure.... Slowly discomfort came up - What was it about the story? But thank god, after an hour of waiting and a short storm the train continued its way to Delhi and finally everyone arrived happy at the hotel.
The rest of the night we sat together on top of the hotel building enjoying a very nice dinner and some cold Cola. The second day in India ... What an adventure...
Arrival
Good morning everyone! Just in case you were wondering, we safely arrived in New Delhi last night. After the journey I was too tired to write this blog, but here it is, a little later.It was a very long day. We gathered at 6.30 in the morning (Dutch time) to get on one of the first trains to Schiphol. It was very nice to see there were some people who came to see us off, no matter the time. Pieter gave a nice speech, all dressed up, and handed over the Marie flag to signal the official start of our study trip.
And then the long journey began. First by train, then by plane and finally by car we arrived at our hotel.The moment we entered the plane, it was pretty clear our airline was Indian instead of Dutch. This is because it must have been at least 30 degrees in there. Fun fact: most Indian-looking passengers were in winter coats or wrapped in blankets. We just used the airconditioning.Apart from the temperature, the plane was pretty fancy. Everyone had their own tv-screen at the back of the next chair, got headphones, and could chose a movie, music album or even some games. The food also seemed pretty Indian to me, though it was still airplane food, so I'm not sure. The dessert, however, was pretty clear: ice cream!
By the time we were landing, we had already seen a colourful sunset above the clouds, so all we could see of Delhi were little lights. Even after we left the airport we couldn't see very much of the city. There was a nice temple that was illuminated, but otherwise it was pretty dark.
Somewhere in the reader I read that Indians don't follow rules as precisely as Dutch people do, and this was very clear in traffic. It seems like the person who can force the other to slow down has priority, changes in direction are signalled by honking and lanes don't mean anything. But there were no accidents, so I guess the drivers know what they are doing - even if it doesn't look like it.
So after almost being scared to death several times in the car, we arrived at the hotel. And by now it's time to start exploring the city before we leave for Agra tonight!